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“Everyone knows that fundraising, for better or for worse, is an indispensable part of the political process in the U.S. I wish it were otherwise,” Adams said. “There’s no reason people who enjoy drinking wine shouldn’t be able to contribute.”

Sanders’ haul in the fourth quarter, which exceeded Biden and Buttigieg’s totals by about $10 million, elevated him even within the small group of other successful fundraisers in the 2020 field. Barring a late surprise, Sanders raised more money from donors than any other Democratic presidential candidate in 2019 — with an average donation of $18, illustrating the growing dominance of online contributors in political fundraising.

Sanders’ team, which has struggled to persuade voters that he is as likely to defeat Trump as Biden, is using his fourth-quarter numbers and his grassroots fundraising strategy to argue for Sanders’ electability. In an email to supporters this week, Sanders estimated that he would raise $1 billion from small-dollar donors in a race against Trump.

Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said there is no magic formula to his fundraising — “I would say it’s the lack of gimmickry” — and that his most successful days are typically debates, when voters simply hear his message unfiltered. He pointed to Sanders’ campaign kickoff email, which was a 1,500-word letter written by the Vermont senator that did not directly ask for money, as an example of the team’s straightforward approach.

“Any [other] digital fundraiser would have probably gone in and said, ‘You’re crazy, you can’t do it this way. That’s the wrong way to go about it. This email is too long. You have to put the dollar figure right here,’” Shakir said. “But that whole email series was very successful.”

A Sanders aide said the final days of fundraising quarters are also among their most successful: New Year’s Eve was the second-best fundraising day of 2019 for Sanders — better than the day after the 2016 Iowa caucuses — and $1 million from 60,000 donations came in during the final hours of that night.

Sanders has benefited from an experienced digital fundraising team, which includes three top staffers who were part of a 2016 campaign that set financial records. Tim Tagaris, a senior adviser to Sanders, is seen in political circles as trailblazer of small-dollar online giving.

Still, some Democrats wonder if the divide between moderates and progressives in the party will have an impact on fundraising — in other words, whether Buttigieg’s high-dollar donors would contribute to, say, Democratic nominee Bernie Sanders in the general election, or whether Sanders’ fans would continue to give to anyone else if he is not the nominee.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” said a veteran operative of Democratic presidential campaigns. “Should Bernie not be the nominee, will people stick by in terms of making those million-dollar contributions or knocking on doors? Both are important and both are needed to beat Trump.”

Democrats may be worrying too much, however: Sanders has repeatedly said he would support whoever the nominee is, and recent Economist/YouGov polls show that 87 percent of his supporters said they will vote for the Democrat next fall.

Many on the left see Sanders’ and Warren’s fundraising totals as proving that their movement is exactly what is needed to take on Trump’s money machine: “This is showing that grassroots power is a force in politics and folks underestimate it at their own peril,” said progressive consultant Rebecca Katz.